Postal activists picket outside Post offices over editorials

Postal employees and supporters on a four-day hunger strike targeted The Washington Post on Wednesday when about 10 protesters picketed in front of the newspaper’s downtown offices to criticize editorials on the U.S. Postal Service.

The activists took aim at an editorial view that has focused on technology, declining mail volume and high labor costs as the culprits behind the Postal Service’s escalating financial problems. The real problem, the protesters have argued all week in rallies at the Capitol and Postal Service headquarters, is Congress, which has not passed legislation to give the agency access to money that it has paid in excess into retiree health benefit and pension funds.

“We’re here to teach The Post a lesson,” said Jamie Partridge, a retired letter carrier from Portland, Ore., who flew to Washington to protest. “We feel like the paper is putting out misinformation.”

The protesters formed a circle on the sidewalk in front of The Post’s headquarters, on 15th Street NW, holding signs that read: “Tell the truth! Not the internet, not the labor costs, Congress is starving the post office.”

They cited an April 15 editorial that argued that declining mail volume requires dramatic reductions to the Postal Service’s infrastructure and workforce: “If the postal service were a private company, its shareholders would be clamoring for it to get on with the restructuring, pronto.”

“Our reporting has made pretty clear to us that the Postmaster General is right when he says the Postal Service faces structural problems, brought on by a decline in first-class mail and other changes, that need to be met by structural changes, including to its labor force and infrastructure. We’ve been happy to print alternative views, including, as the demonstrators distributed today,” a letter from Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.), who took issue with the editorial.

Of several bills pending in Congress, The Post’s editorials support Republican-sponsored House legislation that would allow the Postal Service to close facilities, move quickly to five-day delivery and bar no-layoff clauses in labor agreements. The protesters support Democratic-sponsored bills that focus on returning billions of dollars in payments that the Postal Service has made to pension and health retiree funds that many postal-watchers think were unnecessary.

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Lisa Rein covers the federal workforce and issues that concern the management of government. At The Washington Post, she has written about state politics and government in Annapolis, Md., and in Richmond; local government in Fairfax County, Va.; and the redevelopment of Washington and its neighborhoods.